


Willpower

by wabbitseason



Category: Justice Society of America (Comics)
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wabbitseason/pseuds/wabbitseason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willpower didn't give Alan Scott everything. Neither did the Green Flame</p>
            </blockquote>





	Willpower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [odditycollector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/odditycollector/gifts).



> written for [](http://odditycollector.livejournal.com/profile)[**odditycollector**](http://odditycollector.livejournal.com/) for [](http://fandom-stocking.livejournal.com/profile)[**fandom_stocking**](http://fandom-stocking.livejournal.com/).

Willpower is indeed a remarkable thing, but it only takes you so far. You know this, Alan Scott, better than most men. Your whole life has been shaped by your unwillingness to back down. How many battles have you fought? How many obstacles have you overcome?

Even from the start, you were forged of a sterner stuff. You could have become a doctor like Charles McNider, but you chose to tinker with machines, not human beings. You became an engineer on the railroads, a hard life for even the most robust of men, but you persevered.

That determination nearly cost you your life. Dekker was prepared to kill you to have his way. He might have succeeded, had it not been for the Green Flame.

Do you ever think about that moment? Do you ever lie awake at night and think how lucky you were? In that split second, when the bridge collapsed all around you, did your life flash before your eyes? The experience would shock most men, but somehow it galvanized you into action.

You could have been blinded by your anger. Dekker had killed your men and threatened your livelihood. But you stayed your hand, preferring justice to revenge.

Perhaps that is why you embraced the chance to become the Green Flame's champion, rather than using the power for your own ends. Such adventures did we see together – we fought a war, battled countless villains, and even founded a legendary team of heroes.

You would encounter friends, you would find enemies, you would even discover love but you would not see it for what it was until much later. Such was your life in those halcyon days, filled with the adventure you so craved.

Even the Green Flame couldn't foresee all the twists and turns your life would take. Your world was changing all around you. The war's end brought great prosperity, but also great suspicion.

Your fabled Society was threatened into retirement. Although the age of mystery men would fade into obscurity for a time, your Society would return years later stronger than ever. The younger heroes looked to you as a role model and you relished your new role as mentor, rejuvenated by their energy.

But fate had two other roles for you to play, neither of whom you actively sought out. Father and husband you became and you cherish those parts of your life now. You've struggled with both of them in different ways, but no one could ask more of you.

Will power may have made you the Green Lantern, Alan Scott, but it never gave you the rest. Whatever life you have had, you forged for yourself, just like that ring you carved so many years ago. Your will to live, your willingness to love, and your unwillingness to give up – those are the things that make you my first and greatest champion.


End file.
